Odds and Ends
by xPhineasx
Summary: A collection of dabbles and ficletts, from their first meeting until the end. They share chocolate pudding, Sirius wears mismatched socks, they adopt a puppy named Hypatia Wiggly Butts Ma-gee. Wolfstar.


Odds and Ends.

This is a collection of some of my recent Wolfstar ficletts, drabbles and head canons that I wrote on Tumblr. I've arranged them in chronological order, rather than the order I wrote them in (because that would be confusing as hell.) So this may come off as a bit jumbled.

x x x

Remus was feeling horribly nervous, sitting at the Gryffindor table on his first day at school. He was sure that everyone around him was staring, judging him for his scars and his tattered thrift store robes. He couldn't even pick up a fork for fear that he would vomit.

"Hey, you should eat some chocolate. I bet it would make you feel better." Remus looked up to see a boy with wild black hair and slate grey eyes looking at him with a slightly worried look on his face, holding out a cup of chocolate pudding.

"Th-thank you," Remus stuttered and took the cup. He took a small bite, still staring at the well dressed boy. As soon as the first spoonful slid down his throat the boy let out a heart breaking smile.

"I'm Sirius."

"Remus."

He wasn't sure if it was the chocolate, or the smile, but Remus did, in fact, feel better.

X x x

"Where," Remus said laughing as the snow flurried around his face, "did Prongs and Wormtail get to? You don't think they went back to the castle without us, do you?"

Sirius, his scarf trailing from his hand carelessly through the snow, gave a nonchalant shrug. Being alone with Sirius made Remus feel even more at ease than normal. He had gotten used to letting go around Sirius. They had been far closer than the others since his friends had mastered their transformations. The Wolf was glad to have another canine in their new pack. Ever since then Remus had let himself fully relax around Sirius, in ways that he didn't even around James and Peter.

Night was falling over Hogsmead, as the in coming snow storm blew eddies of snow in and out of the lantern light. It was the last Hogsmead weekend before Christmas, and both Sirius and Remus had filled their bags to the brim with sweets and gifts. A quarter moon hung in the sky above them, ebbing week moon light over the roofs. It would be weeks until the next new moon, Remus thought happily. Not until after Christmas even.

"Moony," Sirius had stopped walking under one of the little pools of lamp light next to Zonko's joke shop. All the shops were beginning to close down. Very soon only Zonko's and the Three Broomsticks would be open.

Remus stopped and turned, not even realizing the other boy had stopped. Sirius looked serious about something, though Remus cringed to think of the awful puns that such an expression led to. "Something wrong, Padfoot?"

Sirius bit his bottom lip and leaned back onto the balls of his feet. Remus hated how hyper sensitive to the boy's movements he was these days, how his smile made his heart race, how his eyes….distracted him. He tried to tell himself it was just the Wolf, watching over the only other dog around, but he knew that it felt like something…more.

Sirius took two long steps forward and grabbed Remus by the elbow. "I…I don't like this game we're playing," Sirius said softly.

"Game?" Remus asked.

"This game where…I watch you until you look up, and you watch me." Remus blushed at that. He hadn't realized Sirius had noticed. Sirius continued though. "This game where…I lay awake at night thinking of you, and then try to act like I didn't every day. This game where I see you staring at me in the showers. This game.."

"Sirius I…" Remus felt a panic clutch at his chest. "I…I'm sorry." It was true that he stared at sirius. Oh Merlin, he thought horribly, Sirius is telling me to back off, Sirius is setting up boundaries, keeping the animal at bay. "I didn't mean…to make you uncomfortable. I….bugger. The Wolf you see….I…."

"No, no, Moony…" Sirius was shaking his head and grabbed Remus' other elbow, turning him to face him completely. "I'm not saying that I….did you only hear half of what I said?" He let a smile crack over his face. "Moony…."

"….Pads?" Remus' eyes were wide, confused. Deep in his chest, the wolf gave him a little nudge. "Are you….?" Sirius gave a small nod. The wolf nudged Remus again. Remus searched Sirius' face looking for confirmation. Surely not. No? "What are you….saying, Pads?"

Sirius, leaned down to close the 3 inch gap in their heights, and kissed Remus before Remus had time to react. Sirius's hands, those big, warm hards, left Remus' elbows to wrap around his waist. Remus melted.

One by one, the shops were turning off their lights, until it was just Zonko's lantern that still burned, with Remus and Sirius caught in pool of light together.

X x x

"Psssssst. Moony. You awake?" Sirius whispered, brushing aside Remus' curtain. Remus was not asleep. How could he, with the full moon just a day away, and the moonlight stubbornly leaking between his curtains and into his bed? The moonlight gave him a migraine, and made him achy. Sirius' arrival was a welcome event.

"Hey Padfoot." He said, sounding sleepy and a little bit miserable. Still, looking at Sirius, Remus felt the pain loosen in his chest just a little. He sat up slowly, scooting to the side so Sirius would have room to slip into the bed with him. Remus was rather slight for a 15 year old, but the Hogwarts beds weren't really big enough for two people, truth be told.

"I just wanted to check on you. You don't sleep well the day before…" Sirius said, crawling onto the bed and shutting the curtains behind him. Remus loved times like this, just the two of them alone. In front of everyone else Sirius was loud and brash, putting up an egotistical, almost maniacal facade. It was only when they were alone that Sirius would let it drop.

"I'm ok. No worse than normal," Remus gave a small laugh and, in one swift move, pinned Sirius down onto the bed. Sirius hadn't even seen how the boy had moved so fast. "But the wolf is a bit…antsy…" he said, his eyes glinting. He leaned down and kissed Sirius, feeling deliciously alpha as the great and powerful padfoot writhed under him, unable to buck him off. Then finally Sirius stopped trying to win back his dominance (it was an effort in vain this close to the full moon) and simply kissed

back. Remus was able to forget his aches, his migraine, and his fear, letting the wolf out just a tad, and feeling Sirius' heat against his skin.

He would kiss him all night if he could, touching him, losing himself in the wonderful Sirius Black.

X x x

They had won the Quidditch cup and it was giving Remus a head ache. Every few minutes someone would raise their glass and cheer "YAY GRYFFINDOR!" to which the REST of the house would cheer "YAY GRYFFINDOR!" as well.

Ah Quidditch, the silliest of sports. Dangerous, confusing, ridiculous. On one hand, Remus was glad the season was over. At least now James and Sirius would have to find something else, anything else, to talk about at dinner. (Sirius wasn't even on the Quidditch team! Why couldn't they talk about anything else?) On the other hand, they had won the cup, which meant no one in that tower was going to sleep before at least 3 in the morning, and Remus could feel a migraine coming on.

And there was the added trouble of having to babysit his boneheaded fleabrained piss drunk boyfriend. (Were they boyfriends now? They had kissed. Gone on dates. Merlin, they had even held hands. But boyfriends? Neither of them had said the word 'boyfriend' yet, but Remus supposed it was the only word he had to describe what Sirius had become, short of sounding ridiculous and calling him his soul mate)

"Padfoot!" Remus yelled, trying to get the boy to get OFF the fireplace mantel for Merlin's sake. He nearly tripped over a few discarded bottles of fire whiskey that had been snuck in and quickly imbibed by all present on his way over to the fire place.

"Did you SEE little Reggie's face, Prongs? Regulus Black, my nasty little brother. You saw his FACE didn't you?" Sirius was laughing, sitting firmly on the edge of the mantle, his feet swinging inches from the fire. "Oh-ho-ho! He thought he won, he did. When he snatched the snitch! But YOU! YOU JAMES POTTER! YOUUUUUU scored that last goal JUS' IN TIME AND WE WON BY TEN BLOODY POINTS!" Sirius was rolling with laughter as Remus walked up and smacked him on the leg.

"Sirius, get down from there! You will hurt yourself," Remus scolded.

"Listen to your WIFE Padfoot!" Peter called from the sofa, where he lay, his face red and blotchy from drinking.

"Yeeeeaaaaah Padfoot. Listen to wifey!" James laughed as well from his spot on the floor where he nursed a bottle of half drunk fire whiskey.

"I…I am not his wife!" Remus snapped, blushing deeply. "Just…get down, Sirius. Come on."

"Will'you take me'to beds?" Sirius slurred, looking down at Remus with a grin. "Whisk me away. I know you're antsy. The moons only a few days away. You get so…dominant near the full moon. I like that. I like that sooooooooo much."

Remus felt his brain, pounding under the assault of his migraine, nearly short circuit while Peter and James erupted into laughter.

"Alright, that's IT." Remus snapped with a small growl. "Sirius Orion Black, you BAD DOG! You get down from there this instant, and go get into my bed! NOW!"

Sirius, James and Peter all stopped. In fact nearly the entire common room stopped and turned to stare at them. Sirius slid off the mantle with a stunned drunk grin and silently, without saying anything else, stumbled towards the boys dorm.

Remus turned to his new, rather unintended audience. He hadn't meant to cause a scene. Fighting down his bubbling social anxiety he managed a weak "Um…yay Gryffindor?", earning a resounding "YAY GRYFFINDOR!" from the crowd before he rushed upstairs to make sure Sirius didn't vomit on the sheets.

X x x

Red and purple. Red and purple. Bright, ridiculous scarlet, the same color at the curtains in their dorm room. Deep, vibrant purple like a nasty bruise.

Who in their right mind wears one red sock, and one purple sock? Who does that?

The answer, Remus knew, was that only someone with more doggie treats in his head than brains would be so careless with his sock choice. Sirius had a stupid habit of just puling on whatever two socks he found first, whether or not the matched. Normally at least, Sirius's trousers had the decency to cover up his mismatched socks. Not today.

Remus was one row behind Sirius in Binns room, trying to listen to the causes of the 124CE Dwarf uprising in Scotland but all he could think about was those stupid red and purple socks! Finally class ended (and Remus still had no idea why the Dwarfs had an uprising at all) and they all filtered out of the class to lunch. Remus caught Sirius by the robe in the hallway. "no. No you don't go to lunch."

"Moony?" Sirius said, quirking an eyebrow. It was less than a week until the full moon, just when Remus's odd compulsions got nearly out of hand. He knew this was ridiculous. It shouldn't bother him. But it did. It did. It was like the day that James had one pant leg pulled up past his ankles and not the other. Remus had almost lost his mind.

"You need to go to the dorm. Change your socks."

"My socks?"

"They are red and purple!"

"…yes?"

"Just….ack!"

Sirius laughed and put one of his large, warm hands on Remus's head. "My socks are bothering you?" he asked, his voice full of chuckles. "I'll change them on one condition then."

"Oh please, anything."

"You're coming with me upstairs," Sirius said with a devil gleam in his eyes. Remus couldn't argue with that.

X x x

Remus never let Sirius touch the scars on his face. He hated those scars. They made him feel ugly. They made him feel like a monster. But when he was asleep, Sirius would run his fingers over the scars on Remus's face and think about how they made him look strong, and brave and beautiful.

X x x

Sirius always jumped in puddles when it rained, splashing muddy water up into the air. He laughed like a mad man, like a child, like someone without a care in the world as he did so. Remus didn't have the heart to scold Sirius for doing it. It was so rare, in those bleak days of the war, to see Sirius smile.

"Moony," Sirius had stopped stomping in muddles as they plodded across the parking lot of the super market. They often went shopping at the muggle store. It was safer than braving Diagon alley for every errand now that the war was producing more and more killings every week. "Moony, come here."

Remus walked over. Underneath a little blue Volkswagen bug was the ugliest dog Remus had ever seen. It was a tiny thing, pale brown with dripping, muddy, curly hair and big black eyes. It looked like an abandoned ratty teddy bear more than a real dog. It gave a small whimper as it shivered, half hidden behind the tire. No collar, Remus instantly noticed. A stray.

"Moony…I think he's homeless…" Sirius said, setting his bag of produce down on the wet ground. "she looks hungry."

"Sirius, leave it. I'm getting wet," Remus said. He tried not to feel bad for the pup. What good would pity do? There were a thousand mutts and strays in this city. Remus himself was one of them.

"Moony…." Sirius looked up at him. "We should adopt him," there was a hint of a teasing smile on his face and a look of horrible, heart breaking hope in his eyes.

"Pads…our landlord would throw a fit," Remus protested.

"He doesn't have to know."

"Don't be ridiculous."

"Please, Moony? I'll feed him and take him for walks and play with him and clean up after him," Sirius's smile was widening as he spoke, and Remus was finding it harder and harder not to just give in.

"Sirius…"

"…..it's just…" Sirius's smile faltered slightly. "I…always wanted a dog. Mother would never…I mean, she let Regulus get a cat but she said that dogs were too…." he didn't finish that thought. Remus kneeled down next to Sirius and examined the pitiful puppy.

The puppy looked up at him, fear and confusion in those dark beady eyes, a tiny scar across her nose. "….what do you want to name it?"

"You mean it Moony?"

"I guess there's room for one more in our pack."

X x x

"Sirius, have you seen Hypatia?" Remus asked, searching their flat for the tiny dog. It was time for her to get a bath, for all the good it would do her. Their puppy from the rain had adjusted fairly well to life in doors, but no amount of magic or soap seemed to keep her clean for more than a few days at a time.

"Are you REALLY calling to dog Hypatia, Remus?" Sirius was laying on the sofa, a bottle of beer dangling from his fingers precariously. Despite Sirius's claims to care for the dog completely himself, he was completely hopeless at bathing the poor thing. So the duty of catching the elusive pup and scrubbing her clean fell onto Remus.

"Well I'm certainly not calling her the name YOU picked," Remus said, checking in their tiny kitchen. The dog was incredibly skilled at hiding as soon as Remus broke out the dog shampoo.

"You said I could name her though!" Sirius protested. The puppy had, it seemed, improved Sirius's mood over all. The little flat never felt as oppressive as it once did now, like the cold tendrils of war were warded off by the youngest member of their pack.

"I did not say you could name her Wiggy-Butts Ma-gee though."

"Well..she has a wiggly butt. It's a good name."

"You're a right proper idiot," Remus sighed.

"An idiot am I?" Sirius leaped off the sofa, with a wild grin on his face.

"Sirius?"

"I'll show you who is an idiot!" The man declared and rushed at Remus, grabbing him around the waist and pulling him off his feet. Remus flailed hopelessly. Sirius had caught him off guard, and it was too far from the full moon for him to call on his alpha wolf strength to win back any kind of advantage. "I may be an idiot, Remus J. Lupin, but I'm an idiot who is dragging you to bed!"

"But Hypatia needs a bath!"

"Wiggy Butt Ma-gee can wait for her bath!" Sirius declared and, indeed, carried him off to bed, saving Hypatia Wiggly Butts Ma-gee Lupin Black from a bath for the time being.

X x x

"Please, don't go," Remus said, clutching the kitchen chair so he wouldn't fall over. Sirius wouldn't face him though, wouldn't turn.

"What?" Sirius said, his hand still on the door knob. "And stay here with you and your secrets? Find me when this war is over and you stop sneaking around like a damn animal."

The door opened. Slammed. And Sirius was gone. A few months later the war was over. And Sirius was still...gone.

X x x

Remus likes new moons the best. They are the nights when he seems most himself, and least like the wolf. They are the nights when the stars shine the brightest. They are the nights he can look up and see the dog star, brightest in Canis Major and spot it without fail. They are the nights when he can remember Sirius the clearest, and he feels less alone.

X x x 

Remus had assumed that Sirius would be the broken one after he got out of prison. He had assumed that the soul crushing years would have ruined the man who had swept him away with his careless smiles and warm hands. As it turned out though, Remus found himself far more broken, far more devoid of hope, than Sirius. For the last 12 years Sirius had a purpose, a goal, and the knowledge that he was innocent. Remus had nothing at all.

X x x

Remus liked it best when Tonks kept her hair pink. When she let it fade to her normal brown she looked too much like Sirius and it made his heart ache.

X x x

"Why can't you see how much I love you! I could make you happy, Remus! I…I feel like I'm drowning without you!"

Remus dug his nails into the wooden table. "Stop this, Tonks." How many times would they have this conversation? How many times would have he have to rehash this with her?

"If you would just listen-"

"No. No YOU Listen." Remus couldn't face her. Couldn't turn to look at her. Couldn't see the hurt in her eyes. "Dora…if I were a younger man…a younger me, I would try for you," he said softly. "I really would. If I were a man who hadn't seen the things I've seen, or done the things I've done, I would try."

"Won't you try anyway? For me?"

"I have nothing left, Dora. I can't give you anything. No money. No home. No security. No hope for a future. The last of that died with your cousin." Remus' voice was barely a whisper.

"So you just want to rot in your grief? I mean it. I'm drowning with out you. You don't understand-"

"Yes, I do, Dora. When I was a younger man with something left to give, I said those same words to your cousin. Now, the moon is rising in a few hours. I need to prepare." He walked out of that room, biting down the grief and guilt he felt as he heard her begin to cry. He had cried too, when Sirius said he couldn't trust Remus any more because of the war.

He wished Dora would give up on him. But she wouldn't.

She was too much like he had been.

X x x

((Reviews always brighten my day. Thanks for reading!))


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